Meeting the needs of adopted children and adopters
In recent years, on the basis of a court decision, approximately 700 children have been placed in pre-adoption care (in the care of future adopters) and for adoption each year. The state pays a lot of attention to the preparation of adopters to receive a child, and the same is true in the case of the care of children who are to be placed in substitute family care. In Czech legislation, adoption is based on the legal fiction of an ordinary family, when there was “acceptance of a stranger as one’s own” (§ 794 of Act No. 89/2012 Coll., Civil Code). Unlike foster care, state aid and support (e.g. in the form of services or ongoing education of caregivers) for adoptive families is not covered by legislation, although they often face similar problems or situations as foster parents and children in foster care. While the amendment to Act No. 359/1999 Coll., on the social and legal protection of children, from 2013 anchored the system and financing of accompanying foster families, the same act imposes on regional authorities the obligation to provide “adopters […] with counseling help related to the adoption of a child […], especially in matters of upbringing” (§ 11, Article 2, paragraph c) of Act No. 359/1999 Coll.), however, in practice, after a court judgment on adoption, the social and legal protection authorities do not tend to provide specialized support adoptive families’ capacity and adoptive families are mostly lost from their view. Identification of the needs of adoptive families and their children and targeted help in solving their problems increases the chances of the success of the entire adoption process and the successful further development of not only the children, but also new family ties.
Adequate attention has not yet been paid to the situation of adopters and adopted children. The project will therefore focus on obtaining completely new knowledge. Added value can be the repeated use of the research tool and methodology in the next period for the evaluation of possible new measures (e.g. setting up accompanying services for adopters).